Wednesday, May 29, 2013

At the beginning of May I went to a quilt show in Morden (Sorry I no longer show quilt show pictures on my blog because of Pinterest - even though I ask people not to pin them, they still do. I feel it is wrong, because it is not my work. It is a shame because there were some amazing quilts! And great ideas - a couple of quilt tops were dyed after piecing to make the fabric more coordinated - a great way to use mismatched scraps - I see this one in my future.) There are a couple of photos on the Barnswallow website here.

As usual at quilt shows I met some lovely people, and bought some much needed items!

This piece of hand embroidery was made by a woman in South Africa as part of Tambani - each piece comes with a card with a photo of the woman that made it. The pieces represent folk tales. Be sure to check out the link, it is such a great job creation project - you can also buy them from Canada (shipping to the US too) and Europe).

I turned the piece of embroidery into a little wall hanging - 14.5" x 16.5" (the piece of embroidery is 7" x 8"). I machine quilted in the ditch and around the embroidered figures, but thought that hand stitching would look better than machine quilting, and so I used black pearl cotton for the "big stitch" quilting. I also added some beads.

Each piece also comes with the a pamphlet of the folk tale - this one is The Rejected Wife - a story about how a woman and her five sons overcame adversity and triumphed (Alex Anderson reads the story here).

Since I now spend much less time on the computer, I have more time for other things -

I divided the fibre in half, and spun one half with all the colours randomly (the bobbin on the right), and for the other half I spun all the brown, then all the red and finally all the yellow (the bobbin on the left). Now that it is plied, you can still see the long colour change. I plan on making a shawl with this skein.

I am also trying my first pair of toe-up socks (this is some self-stripping yarn I had). While buying the piece of embroidery, I met Clara (from South Africa, a volunteer with Tambani), who was knitting two at a time, toe-up socks and she kindly sent me the link for the pattern she was using (here is a link to part one). I like socks as a "take-along" project, since it is easy knitting.

My sweater is also coming along, I am up to the hip shaping increases. I have to knit about 7" on the body and then the long sleeves.

It is so nice to see the leaves on the trees after six months! Time to get outside and work in the yard.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Last week we went to see Fleetwood Mac in concert! It was fabulous, and a dream come true for me.

sorry - not the clearest picture

This month's art quilt has a line from my favourite song - "Landslide".

The fabric is a piece of my hand dyed fabric, that I painted before quilting, and then added some more details with paint, pearl cotton and beads after machine quilting. It is 6" x 8"

The stack of art quilts are growing, and I think I have figured out how to "bind" them together in to a book - I plan on attaching a couple of metal loops of the side, and stringing a ribbon through them. I will also make a front and back cover for the book.

Surprisingly I made something practical too - my youngest asked me to make him a pair of pyjama shorts (made out of leftover quilting flannel though, at least they are just one colour - he was happy).

I have another knitting project on the go - this is a top down seamless sweater - a really lovely way to make a sweater because you can try it on as you go. I am knitting it in the round with interchangeable needles (mine are Addis Turbo), the needle for the right hand is the proper size for gauge, but the needle for the left hand is a smaller size so that the stitches slip over easily as a I knit (I tend to knit tight and this has made a big difference).

Things are finally starting to grow around here - tulips are blooming, trees are budding and hopefully it will get warmer!

Thursday, May 2, 2013

This is a wallhanging that my Mother made - the pattern is from an older Quilt Mania magazine, but she used her GO! for the smaller appliqué pieces (the Rose of Sharon, and Bird dies).

I quilted swirls and swooshes in the background, I also did some free motion embroidery for the vines, stems and leaves. My Mother will add beads. It is about 40" x 50".

This table runner is one that a friend made. It is a Hunter Star.

I did some pretty simple designs on it. The continuous curves in the stars are quilted with metallic thread by Marathon - a local company - I was told that it was really easy to free motion quilt with, and I was pleasantly surprised. I normally steer clear of metallic thread for FMQ, but this one was great - I didn't change the tension and used a regular universal #80 needle with no problems.

You can see the quilting better from the back, some holly and ribbons because it is for Christmas.

Carrying on the Tradition

The old quilts on the right side of my blog header photo are ones made by a couple of great-grandmothers, a grandmother and an aunt, plus some of their photos and some of their quilting supplies. The quilt in the background and the ones on the left are mine.